What are the main events and characters that most influence the power dynamics of the group in Lord of the Flies?
An aspect to the influence of power dynamics in the Lord of the Flies is Roger. The reason Roger was influential to the power dynamics because Roger was willing to do work that Jack wouldn’t have been able to do. On page 201, it says ‘High overhead, Roger, with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever’. The lever caused a boulder to descend onto Piggy, which caused his death.The words delirious abandonment create the affect that Roger has had a bad upbringing and that is the reason why Roger kills Piggy. Of course, most of the readers will hate Roger by now, as he is killing a vital character in the story. This made Roger’s power unparalleled, as no one else would be amenable to do execute murder. Without Roger, Jack would have to force the mob mentality, which could eventually get oversaturated to the point whereat least one person would either get disinterested or would figure out that Jack is just utilizing the hunters as tools and not as beings. William Golding’s objective was to have a slow build up in character for Roger, and he also foreshadowed the fact that Roger might kill someone or turn out somewhat violent. He does this when it says ‘Roger stooped, picked up a stone, aimed, and threw it at Henry— threw it to miss’. Although he was aiming to miss, he was still doing this to a littleun, which most people would find horrible to do. If he was heartless enough to hurt a littleun, he probably wouldn’t mind inflicting pain onto someone of his own age.
An important side character was a nameless littleun, who was not important himself, but instilled the idea of the beast. This littleun told Piggy about the beast initially, which is why he is crucial to the story. The beast is one of the main reasons why Jack rose to power, so he indirectly was one of the causes of the anarchy on the island. Piggy says on page 34 “He wants to know what you’re going to do about the snake-thing”. This is evidence that the boy was a bit unsure if the beast was real, which is why he doesn’t say it to Ralph directly. He also is indecisive about what the beast is,as it says snake thing on this page , which gives Jack a way to turn it into anything he wants. On page 177 Jack says “he came disguised. He may come again even though we gave him the head of our kill to eat”. When he says this he his implying that the beast can change forms and that he once turned into Simon,so it was the right thing to kill him.
Ralph is a central character to the plot of the Lord of the Flies. At the start of the story, it is one sided and Ralph manages to maintain hold of the power. The reason being is because Jack was satisfied with the amount of power which he had. Later on though, Jack starts to focus more on the surviving and living a luxurious life, rather than getting rescued. This clashes with Ralph’s ideals, as he wanted to get rescued as soon as possible. On page 74 Ralph says “There was a ship. Out there. You said you’d keep the fire going and you let it out!”. Even from that line of dialogue you can tell that Ralph is frustrated, but William Golding added more detail when it says how Ralph’s fists were clenched, which tells us that Ralph would be ready to fight Jack. At this instance, most people would expect the power to go towards Ralph because of Jack’s mistake, but it actually leans more to Jack’s side. The reason being is that by expressing how he was angry at Jack, he was actually indirectly saying this to everyone who was with him as well. Considering the fact that everyone was with Jack, they would probably feel a bit offended, especially since they believed that they have accomplished something by killing the pig. This would cause a little bit of hate aimed at Ralph, which would in turn cause the rise of power for Jack.
From my point of view, the most important factor to the changes in power dynamics is the Jack. If he ever lost power, he could use the group of hunters to rule over the island by fear. The group are easily manipulated by a mob mentality and Jack takes advantage of it when he creates chants for the group to get into the mood. He gets all the hunters to say “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood”. This is very efficacious use of language and makes Jack very prominent in the changing of power dynamics, as he can get all the hunters to comport to committing murder in order for him to gain authority. The perfidiousness of Jack also assisted his rise to power, as the gain of Ralph’s trust should have meant that he would be willing to spare Ralph and perhaps join Ralph in his attempts to get extricated from the dangers of the island. Golding’s intention when making Jack as a character were to create a power hungry tyrant who’s main goal was to reign over the island as a king.
In conclusion, I think that the power dynamics were mainly in the hands of Jack and Ralph, as they were the two main competitors. Jack’s previous status as choir leader created a good start, so he already had the upper hand, which was an advantage to have.
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